Members of the Nagarhar Agri-business Development Team listen to a pre-mission brief, March 17, 2012. The mission of the ADT is to support initiatives that will ensure the sustainability of Afghan agricultural productivity.

Yes, what one of my old platoon sergeants used to call the “pre-boomtime rituals.”

Just my opinion, but I think this Agri-Business stuff and a lot more should be strictly DoS run. Maybe coordination with DoD, but DoS should be the proponent. I saw plenty of the referenced pissing contests. In the majority of cases, my impression was that DoS didn’t want the J.O.B. but certainly had some vested interest.

Using DoS PRT experiences as my base, I say that you won’t be able to cut the DoD/DoS tether until DoS can provide their own security. My last deployment with the HBCT, the DoS PRT sucked down almost a full company of combat power in escort requirements. Not to mention that the PRT became, at my direction, inextricably linked via my targeting efforts. That could be cut, for the loss of unity-of-effort, but not the security requirement. But, if you cut the link, then DoS rapidly goes off on a different tangent, leading to a need for close coordination to prevent unforeseen fallout; i.e. DoD is engaging with Group A and marginilizing Group B, while DoS is working with Group B exclusively.

Esli, I think you are spot on with the assessment of the security side of this. Certainly don’t need another group of “friendlies” out-side the direct chain of command launching bullets into the unknown.

But there were a lot of roles, early on in Afghanistan, that the DoS was uniquely qualified, among government agencies, to fill – and this farming thing was one of them – but the department sort of dodged away from. Pre-surge in Iraq was the same, in my experience. Not a week went by without someone “airing out” the disconnects. Arguably that got better by 2007-8 time frame.

Then again, maybe it was just me complaining about the “State” guys sucking up all the NIPR bandwidth….

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